President Donald Trump’s nomination of a former conservative New Mexico congressman to lead the Bureau of Land Management is almost certain to spark a partisan divide in the Senate in the coming weeks.
But on Wednesday, prominent Western Senate Republicans were cheering Steve Pearce’s nomination for the BLM director’s post that oversees an agency responsible for managing energy development and mining on roughly 700 million acres of federal subsurface mineral estate.
“I knew Steve in the House days, and Steve is a great pick. And I particularly like the fact that it’s a Westerner,” Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines said in an interview. “I think it’s helpful when we have leaders in those important positions that come from the West, when they understand uniquely the challenges we face as it relates to federal land, state land, private land. And Steve Pierce has lived it and breathed it.”
Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R) echoed Daines, referring to Pearce as “my friend,” and highlighting the time when both were Republican House members during Trump’s first term. Pearce served seven terms in the House, most recently stepping down in 2019 after he made a failed bid to be his state’s governor.
